College GameDay's Desmond Howard Blasts Florida, Napier Ahead of LSU Matchup

Howard specifically targeted Florida's culture in his explanation.

Desmond Howard blasted Florida's culture as the Gators head into a Week 3 matchup at LSU. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

Ahead of their Week 3matchup against LSU, the Florida Gators received some harsh criticism from former Heisman Trophy winner and current ESPN analyst Desmond Howard.

Howard, a college football legend for his time at Michigan, did not pull punches when speaking on Florida’s disastrous loss at home against South Florida, questioning the Gators' leadership over talent.

“I think they have a culture there that is not indicative of winning,” Howard said during College GameDay. “I think it is a culture issue right now, not a talent issue.”

The Gators never felt like a lesser-talented team in the Swamp on Saturday, yet consistently found ways to allow USF to stay in the game just long enough to sneak out a win. A flurry of mistakes later, and the Gators are now the talk of college football for all the wrong reasons.

“Even the players from USF said ‘it was really clear one team had more discipline than the other,'” Howard continued. “And that says it all.”

Now 1-1, the Gators have nowhere to hide, forced to play catch up the rest of the year to have a shot at reaching their earlier expectations. After dropping what felt like an easier game on their schedule, Florida heads into a gauntlet needing to be near-perfect.

“We all knew that Florida was going to have a gauntlet of a schedule to go through. Just didn’t know it was going to start a week ago against South Florida,” Howard said. “I had really, really high expectations of Florida coming into the season…but when you watched them against USF, lack of discipline, I think that is a byproduct of the culture.”

After racking up 11 total penalties and awarding USF over 100 extra yards, along with taking two touchdowns off the board and seeing one player ejected for spitting on another, culture is now a serious question in Gainesville despite a head coach who has preached it for years. Though it is the actions of the players that earn the penalties, it is the responsibility of the coaches to establish a culture that makes such penalties unacceptable.

“They're under my leadership. It's ultimately my responsibility,” head coach Billy Napier said. “We need to eliminate the false starts. We need to eliminate the personal fouls. We did have a substitution penalty as well. So those are the ones as coaches that we have to take responsibility for.”

With all eyes on them, Florida will look to clean up their act and their reputation in Death Valley against the third-ranked Tigers. Backs against the wall, the Gators will need to find the discipline they have lacked, allowing their talent to play free for any chance at a win.